Solarplaza Summit | Greece

Michael Buchsbaum is a veteran energy journalist. After earning a master’s in English, he began taking both a pen and camera underground to document the coal mines and coal cultures of North America. Further research in Europe helped him launch a career as an international energy journalist and industrial photographer. Assignments from dozens of magazines, trade publications, institutional and corporate clients enabled him to crisscross myriad coalfields, gas patches and industrial centers throughout Europe, the United States and Canada. But after experiencing so much human and natural destruction, he switched to using his voice, pen and camera to advocate for a just renewable energy transition. Since moving to Germany, he has written, edited and podcasted for Power Magazine, IRENA, the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogs, Deutsche Welle and Europe Beyond Coal. Recipient of an International Journalist Fellowship, since 2018 he has been the lead writer and podcaster for the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Energytransition.org platform.

Vítor is currently the Technical director utility Europe of LONGi Solar since 2020. He has spent 14 years at TÜV Rheinland and brings extensive PV know-how in different areas including auditing and inspecting factories and installations in Europe, Asia, and South America, supervising construction and evaluating performance, as well as undertaking safety inspections and performance enhancement of PV plants worldwide.

Theodor Tsiolis is the Solution Director at the Representative office of Huawei Digital Power since 2020. Theodor has more than 12 years of experience in the renewable energy sector as a solar solution PV Engineer, Project Manager, system designer and data analysts. He holds and BA in Mechanical Engineering from the University of West Attica.

Stelios Psomas is a leading Greek PV consultant and lobbyist. He started campaigning for PV in Greece already in 1995 (as a Greenpeace energy & climate campaigner). Since then he has pushed for the introduction of support schemes for PV and the opening of the market through his role as a policy advisor for the Hellenic Association of Photovoltaic Companies (HELAPCO). He has been actively involved in the introduction of feed-in tariffs, self-consumption support schemes, auction schemes and long-term energy planning in Greece. In particular, he was involved in the drafting of most of the PV-related legislation in Greece, and has also acted as an advisor to the banking sector, facilitating the financing of PV systems.

Alexandra Sdoukou is a lawyer, permanent employee at the Management Organisation Unit of Development Programmes (MOU S.A.) under the Ministry of Economy and Development. Since 2004, she has been working as legal advisor in the public administration in various positions at the Ministries of Economy, Development and Environment, Energy & Climate Change. She has been specialised as energy policymaker, working with all Energy Ministers from 2007 to 2015. From 2012 to 2015, she was Head of Cabinet at the Minister of Environment, Energy & Climate Change, competent to develop policy formulation, implementation and monitoring on a wide range of energy and environmental projects. From October 2017, she was Advisor to the President of Nea Dimokratia on energy and natural resources. Alexandra holds a Bachelor of Law degree from Democritus University of Thrace, a Master’s Degree LLM in European Commercial Law from the University of Bristol U.K., and a M.Sc. in International & Economic studies from the Athens University of Economics & Business.

Yannis Kabouris was born in Athens on 1962. He holds a Diploma on Electrical Engineering (1985) and a PhD (1992), both from the National Technical University of Athens. From 1991 until 2001 he was working in the Public Power Corporation (PPC) - System Studies Department. He joined the Hellenic Transmission System Operator (HTSO) on 2001 and the Independent Power Transmission Operator of Greece (IPTO) on 2011. He has served in various positions in the electricity sector and participated in several entso-e bodies and activities (2000 to present). Currently, he is Director for Foreign Affairs in IPTO, BoD Chairman and CEO of SELENE CC and Vice President of MΕD-TSO. He is the Chairman of the CIGRE National committee of Greece. He is a member of CIGRE and IEEE. He gained the SWAN PREMIUM AWARD (2002). He also received the “PROMITHEUS” award by the IENE (2021).

Takis Sarris is a Mechanical Engineer with an MSc in Energy Production, actively engaged in the energy sector for 21 years. He has more than 16 years experience in the Renewables market, in executive level positions developing and executing corporate and operational strategies. Since December 2014 he is the President and Managing Director of juwi Hellas SA. Since 2021 he is in the Board of Directors of HELAPCO. His career highlights include the construction of the first natural gas tri-generation CHP plant in Greece in the early ‘00s, the construction of one of the first grid connected PV plants in Turkey in 2015, the successful participation in the first pilot Greek PV Tender in 2016, and the implementation of a 204MW mega PV project in Greece in 2022, the largest at the time bifacial PV plant in Europe.

Stella Zacharia is a senior executive in TERNA ENERGY Group. Her latest positions are Head of Energy Policy & Regulation, Head of Energy Assessment and CEO of OPTIMUS ENERGY, the RES Aggregator of TERNA ENERGY Group. She is a Renewable Energy expert in Greek and International Markets, collecting more than 20 years of proven experience in the fields of development, energy assessment, modelling & forecast, RES participation in energy markets and policy & regulation. She is also a member of TERNA ENERGY Strategy Committee and a member of HERON THERMOELECTRIC Board of Directors. Stella Zacharia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and an MSc in Environmental Physics.

Stamatis Vournelis is leading Aquila Clean Energy’s project development and construction business for solar, wind and energy storage in Greece. He is a civil engineer with more than 20 years professional experience. He has actively participated in the development, design, procurement, construction and commissioning of numerous renewable energy and infrastructure projects of diverse size and complexity, in Greece, Balkans and Middle East. Before joining Aquila Capital group in 2021, he worked in various positions for Ellaktor, GES, Lavel and Iberdrola Rokas Renewables. Stamatis holds a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Queen Mary College, University of London, and a master's degree in Structural and Bridge Engineering from University of Surrey.

Katherine Poseidon is Voltalia's Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor, reporting to the Head of Development for Europe and Africa. Before joining Voltalia, Katherine worked in BloombergNEF's Energy Transition Team. She led coverage of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and managed BNEF's research on coal phase-out and energy transition policy in Europe, and also contributed to BNEF's regional market outlooks and long-term modelling. Previously, Katherine worked at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy in Athens, Greece . Katherine holds Masters degrees from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Athens, and a BA from the University of Cambridge.

Anastasia Sampani is an Electrical and Computer Engineer, graduate of the National Technical University of Athens, and holds a MSc in Energy Engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and a MSc in Electrical Engineering for Smart Grids and Buildings from the Grenoble Institute of Engineering and Management. She joined Enel Green power Hellas in 2018 and, after gaining experience in different roles, currently she is leading the Regulatory Affairs team for Europe Area. Prior to her current position within Enel, she was occupied in the European Energy Markets, Regulation and Analysis team of the European Affairs office of the Enel Group in Brussels. Before joining Enel, she has worked as a Research Associate in CERTH (Center of Research and Technology Hellas), DERlab (European Distributed Energy Resources Laboratories) and EDF Lab Paris - Saclay.

Evangelos Gazis is Aurora’s Market Lead for South Eastern Europe, covering Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. While at Aurora, Evangelos has gained extensive commercial due diligence experience in energy asset investments in the UK, Ireland and Australia. He managed Aurora’s multi-client study on hydrogen and has also advised major developers and infrastructure funds on the business case of battery, pumped-hydro and compressed-air storage technologies. Before joining Aurora in November 2017, Evangelos spent 4 years at Imperial College London as a Research Associate at the Centre for Environmental Policy and a consultant with Imperial Consultants. He also co-authored the book Energy innovation for the 21st century. Evangelos holds a PhD in Engineering (Energy Systems) and an MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems from the University of Edinburgh, and an MEng in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Dr. Costas Baslis is an Electrical and Computer Engineer, holding a PhD degree on electricity markets from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Since 2010 he has been with HERON Group of Companies, member of the GEK TERNA Group, where he serves as Energy Management Director. Since 2017 he also serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of OPTIMUS ENERGY S.A., Greece’s first and largest renewable aggregator. Dr. Baslis has a long professional experience in wholesale electricity and natural gas markets in Greece and abroad, focusing on portfolio management of generation, supply and trading activities, active participation of renewable projects in spot markets and optimization of long-term energy offtake agreements. He has also authored several research papers published in top-ranked peer-reviewed scientific journals and conferences.

Gianluca joined NextEnergy Capital in early 2008 and he is currently responsible of the international development platform of the NextEnergy Group (Starlight). Previously he headed NextPower II, a private equity fund which was successfully exited at the end of 2021 after having invested €232 million in operating solar PV assets in Italy. Gianluca has almost 15 years of experience in the renewable energy sector, spread across different areas, from the development to the financing, construction and then technical, administrative, financial, accounting and fiscal management of solar PV assets in various jurisdictions. Previously, he worked in the investment banking industry for 6 years, across different financial institutions (Calyon, Mediobanca, Dresdner Kleinwort and lastly Morgan Stanley) and countries (Italy and UK), gaining an extensive expertise in the energy and infrastructure sector, having worked on several landmark M&A and capital market transactions closed both in Italy and abroad.

Vassilis Zorbas was born in Athens in 1974; he studied Mechanical Engineering in the National Technical University of Athens and holds an MBA from Cardiff Business School. Vassilis started his career holding various managerial positions in Unisys and Procter & Gamble Greece. Since 2006 he has been working in the Renewable Energy sector in Project Development, EPC execution and General Management positions. After leading the Solar Engineering teams of strong international groups such as Wuerth Solar, Skysolar and Sunrise, he moved to Phoenix Solar where he served for 3 years as a General Manager for Greece and Commercial Director for Europe. In 2019 he founded Entricity, a firm specialized in Business Development, Design and Construction of Renewable Energy, Battery Storage and Hydrogen projects. Scope of Entricity is to expand its RES operations to selected European countries and enhance its business platform by getting actively involved in E-mobility. Entricity has currently under development in Greece a substantial pipeline of Solar and Battery Storage projects with an overall capacity of more than 6,5GW.

He co-founded Inaccess in 2000 as a smart controls company and was its CEO until the company's acquisition by Power Factors, in June 2022. At Power Factors he is responsible for Controls, Grid and Market Integration activities of the company. At Inaccess he developed the business strategy and product direction, managed business development, and pursued strategic cooperations with technology vendors and key customers. His main interests include Renewable energy (primarily PV) and related technologies (Batteries, Microgrids, dispatchable loads), Grid compliance and Market Integration. He is a member of various international associations and a frequent speaker in sector-specific conferences and thematic events on the topic of smart energy, renewables systems and optimal grid integration. Before starting Inaccess, from 1998 to 2000, Mr. Georgopoulos carried out R&D work for Lucent's Bell Labs on automation and controls and automation for smart homes and enterprises; from 1993 to 1998 he was an R&D associate with NTUA, Greece, working in research projects with several EU telecommunications companies on the topic of integrated broadband networks. He holds a diploma in Electrical & Computer Engineering and a Ph.D. in Integrated Broadband Networks, both from NTUA, Greece.

Virginia is a Partner in the Project & Structured Finance Group. Virginia specialises in acquisitions and financings in the Greek infrastructure and energy sectors, as well as real estate, corporate/M&A, insurance, mining and commodities transactions for both Greek and international investors and banks. Virginia graduated from Cambridge University in 1989 and practised as a barrister in London for five years before moving to Athens and qualifying as a Greek lawyer in 1998. She then spent ten years at a major Greek commercial law firm before joining WFW in 2007. Virginia is widely recognised for her energy, projects, finance and corporate/M&A expertise by legal directories Chambers Europe, Legal 500 EMEA and IFLR 1000. In 2019, Chambers acknowledged her as “a market leader in the renewables sector” and hailed her “expertise in English law”, while client interviewees noted she is “very adaptable, flexible and provides her legal opinion very promptly and succinctly”.

Dario holds a Master degree in Industrial Engineering focusing on Energy and Sustainability Management. He has previous experience in strategy consulting with Deloitte Consulting and various roles as Originator General Manager at Danske Commodities. He currently coordinates the Energy Market Taskforce at the Italian Wind Association (ANEV). Dario has contributed to establishing ONE’s European leadership in PPA Transaction advisory, having supported generators in over 5 GW of market parity transactions from inception to closing.

Vicky Gkrimpa is a senior executive joined Linde Hellas in 2019, as Procurement Manager GR&CY and member of the local Management Team. She is a professional with broad experience across various industries - Personal Care, IT Services, Pharmaceutical, FMCG, Consultancy, Gaz – cooperating with big Greek as well as multinational companies. The diversity of her roles from Business Consultancy to Project management & from Logistics to Procurement gave her the opportunity to lead various projects with local & global stakeholders. Vicky Gkrimpa is a Mechanical Engineer from NTUA, GR and holds an MBA from Warwick Business School, UK.

Dr S.Kapellos is a graduate of the Chemical Department of the University of Athens. He received a PhD on the field of Physical Chemistry from the same Institution. Between 1993 and 2007, he had the opportunity to fill various managerial posts within the BP Hellas Organization: Quality, Health, Safety and Environment, Human Resources, Customer Services, Pricing and Credit, Retail Fuels District Manager Northern Greece. In 2007, he is appointed as the CEO of BP Solar Hellas, to setup the new business. Since 2010, he works for ELPE Renewables (100% owned by HELPE Group). He currently holds the position of the Chief Operating Officer of the company, being a BoD member of the company. Τhe current RES portfolio of ELPE Renewables is comprised of more than 2000 MW of PV, Wind and Storage Projects, of which 37 MW PV and 44 MW Wind in operation. In February 2020, the acquisition of a 204 MW PV project in Kozani is signed that has been constructed and connected to the Grid in April 2022. This is the largest in operation RES project in Greece and one of the largest PV projects in Europe. Dr.S.Kapellos, currently the Chief Operating Officer of ELPE Renewables, has been, on behalf of HELPE, the Lead Negotiator and then the Project Manager and the Managing Director of the Kozani 204 MW PV Project companies. Dr.S.Kapellos has published several scientific articles in international magazines during his academic career and several articles on subjects related to RES, Solar Technology and Energy Policy for newspapers, relevant magazines and e-media. Since 2008, he is being an elected member of the board of the Hellenic Association of PV companies (HELAPCO) and since April 2013 Chairman of the board of the Association. Since April 2021 he has been elected as President of the Energy Committee of the Hellenic-German Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Ypatios Moysiadis’ early years spent growing up in an industrial coal mining town in Northwest Greece had a profound effect on his career and helped embed a focus on sustainability in all his future ventures. He started working in renewables 15 years ago, capitalising on the legislative introduction of renewable energy incentives. Over the years he expanded his scope into the development, construction and operation of renewable energy assets. This work lead to posts at major British and international organisations like Galliford Try Group, Grupotec, Foresight Group, BayWa r.e. and Voltalia Group, working in several spot markets and countries. Ypatios has worked across the value chain on all major renewable technologies, with emphasis on Solar PV. Today, Ypatios is the Managing Partner of Wattcrop focusing on development of new generation projects internationally and advancement of innovation within the services sector of Renewable Energy. He is a visiting lecturer at Cass Business School London and ESCP Business School Paris, and promotes Renewables as an author and active blogger.

Dimitris Varveris is a BSc graduate of Applied Mathematics and an MSc graduate in Economics & Logistics. Initially obtaining experience in the field of logistics working for COSCO and Maersk groups, he co-founded Eurocom S.A. in 2018, a company delivering tailor made customs and logistics solutions for large inbound and outbound cargo flows through and into Greece. Since 2019 and through mutual cooperation with COSCO SHIPPING GREECE, Eurocom S.A. has specialized in PV park customs and logistics procedures and is currently serving some of the largest PV panel, inverters, electrical and electronic appliances manufacturers worldwide as well as most of the largest holding portfolio EPC contractors, managing the supply chain of their flows through Greek ports and delivering solar modules, inverters and peripherals all over Europe and the Middle East.

Yannis is a Director of the PwC Strategy Team in Greece. As a Senior expert on energy policy issues for the last 17 years, he had a continuous participation in National and European technical and regulatory committees in the field of Renewables Sources, Energy Efficiency and Energy Planning for more than a decade and he has been the key author of several technical reports, policy studies, regulatory and legislative texts, as well as national policy plans in the energy field. He has been also BoD member of the Helleninc Energy Exchange for 3yrs and until joining PwC. Yannis has continuously been Member of the National Committee for the Energy and Climate Plan from its formulation in 2018 until the present day. Before joining PwC, he has been a Senior Expert of GIZ GmbH for the Technical Assistance in the fields of Renewables and Energy Efficiency provided to the Greek Ministry for Environment and Energy from 2013 until beginning of 2022, and previously employed at the National Centre for Renewable Sources and Energy Saving for almost 9 years. He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and worked in the JRC-Institute for Energy of the European Commission in the Netherlands as a PhD fellow and Research Agent.

Costas Caralis is leading Hive Energy’s activities in Greece having bring into mature stage more than 500MW of projects for Hive, among them the first emblematic investment of exceptional importance in Greece combining Solar, Storage and Green Hydrogen. Costas has been in Solar industry since 2008 and before joining Hive Energy, he worked in C-level positions focused on strategy and growth in multinational corporations in Greece for SGS, Schuco International and Solarcentury, while currently holds the position of Managing Director in Hive Energy Hellas a subsidiary of Hive Energy in Greece and a board member of Grunkraft S.A. Costas holds a Master degree in Mineral Resources engineering and a Master in Business Administration.

Dimitris has joined Jinko Solar in 2013, where he started working as a Sales Manager. Since 2020 he looks after the South Eastern European region, as the Head of Sales South Eastern Europe. His key focus remains the Greek market, where he has successfully created a vast sales network among both residential and utility scale customers. His strong innovative mindset and his deep found knowledge about the market makes him a valued expert in the field of Sales and Business Development.

Philipp is responsible for building BayWa r.e.’s project development business in Greece. Prior to his current role, he coordinated the company’s global activities for hybrid projects and energy storage. He was also a co-founder and CEO of OneShore Energy GmbH, an energy company focused on the design and realisation of PV diesel hybrid energy systems, which was acquired by BayWa r.e. GmbH in 2017. Before, he launched the European businesses of NexTracker (leading global tracker company) and Solaria (low-concentration module manufacturer), and worked as a management consultant and banker. Philipp serves as a member of the Advisory Committee of the International Hybrid Power Systems Workshop organised by Energynautics and the Hybrid Conference by Solarplaza. He studied at London School of Economics in London and ESADE in Barcelona, and holds a M.Sc. and a CEMS degree in Management.

Nasos Plainos is Key Account Sales Manager at LONGi Solar, a leading photovoltaic solar cell and module manufacturer. He has been working in solar industry for 14 years since early 2008 after 6 years in Professional Sports Lighting. Before joining LONGi in 2019, Nasos Plainos has been with Metka Egn, Intrakat and Sense one Technologies in leading roles in Strategic Business Development and Management positions and could significantly contribute to make each of them a number one in their industry sectors. He holds the Bachelor of Science and a HED in Electrical Electronic ENG. degree from Leeds University and Becket University in Leeds / United Kingdom.

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